In Freedom's Cause : a Story of Wallace and Bruce eBook

One day when he was in the forest of Selkirk with
the king a body of fifty men were seen approaching.
Their leader inquired for Sir Archibald Forbes, and
presently approached him as he was talking to the
king.

“Sir Archibald Forbes,” he said, “I
am bidden by my mistress, the lady Mary Kerr, to bring
these, a portion of the retainers of her estates in
Ayrshire, and to place them in your hands to lead and
govern.”

“In my hands!” Archie exclaimed in astonishment.
“The Kerrs are all on the English side, and
I am their greatest enemy. It were strange, indeed,
were one of them to choose me to lead their retainers
in the cause of Scotland.”

“Our young lord Sir Allan was slain at Methven,”
the man said, “and the lady Mary is now our
lady and mistress. She sent to us months ago
to say that she willed not that any of her retainers
should any longer take part in the struggle, and all
who were in the field were summoned home. Then
we heard that no hindrance would be offered by her
should any wish to join the Bruce; and now she has
sent by a messenger a letter under her hand ordering
that a troop of fifty men shall be raised to join
the king, and that it shall fight under the leading
and order of Sir Archibald Forbes.”

“I had not heard that Sir Allan had fallen,”
Archie said to the king as they walked apart from
the place where the man was standing; “and in
truth I had forgotten that he even had a sister.
She must have been a child when I was a boy at Glen
Cairn, and could have been but seldom at the castle
—­ which, indeed, was no fit abode for so
young a girl, seeing that Sir John’s wife had
died some years before I left Glen Cairn. Perhaps
she was with her mother’s relations. I
have heard that Sir John Kerr married a relation of
the Comyns of Badenoch. `Tis strange if, being of such
bad blood on both sides, she should have grown up
a true Scotchwoman —­ still more strange
she should send her vassals to fight under the banner
of one whom she must regard as the unlawful holder
of her father’s lands of Aberfilly.”

“Think you, Sir Archie,” the king said,
“that this is a stratagem, and that these men
have really come with a design to seize upon you and
slay you, or to turn traitors in the first battle?”

Archie was silent. “Treachery has been
so much at work,” he said after a pause, “that
it were rash to say that this may not be a traitorous
device; but it were hard to think that a girl —­
even a Kerr —­ would lend herself to it.”

“There are bad women as well as bad men,”
the king said: “and if a woman thinks she
has grievances she will often stick at nothing to
obtain revenge.”

“It is a well appointed troop,” Archie
said looking at the men, who were drawn up in order,
“and not to be despised. Their leader
looks an honest fellow; and if the lady means honestly
it were churlish indeed, to refuse her aid when she
ventures to break with her family and to declare for
Scotland. No; methinks that, with your permission,
I will run the risk, such as it may be, and will join
this band with my own. I will keep a sharp watch
over them at the first fight, and will see that they
are so placed that, should they mean treachery, they
shall have but small opportunity of doing harm.”